Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend is the hottest band in suburban America, backed by a loyal following of hipsters that believe being young, white and privileged is the cleverest and least conformist thing any band has ever had the balls to do.

Also, we have chandeliers at our frat parties. Take THAT, poor people.
Also, we have chandeliers at our frat parties. Take THAT, poor people.

Just The Facts

  1. It's common to mistake hipsters for being obnoxious or untalented when, in actuality, he or she is actually being clever and non-conformist.
  2. Vampire Weekend's debut album is considered one of the best of 2008 by the music industry's leading non-conformists.
  3. Not appreciating the clever use of African pop in Vampire Weekend's music is a sure sign of being uneducated, racist or poor - all of which is considered yucky.

Mansard Roof

Anna Pickard, a writer for British daily newspaper The Guardian, neatly summed up the single "Mansard Roof":

"This is one of the happiest, summeriest songs you could ever imagine," about "a bunch of nice little boys on a sailboat having some tea and deciding to be in the sixties…whilst experimenting with African pop rhythms and retro shades."

Assuming your head didn't just explode, the idea of some Ivy League-educated douchebags having tea on a sailboat and playing pretend while "experimenting" with anything African and/or retro is enough to make you at least throw our computers out of the goddamn window. Vampire Weekend has accurately caputred what Dead Poets Society vacations were like between semesters of being rich, playing polo and committing suicide because their lives were too fucking great.


The soul-crushing beauty of life and my endless sacks of money have led me to suicide.

A-Punk

If you're wearing a $34 Thunder Cats t-shirt right now, you know the lyrics to this song - and you're probably still complaining about "mansard roofs" not being elitist. Good for you; you're an asshole. For the rest of us, the full extent of the video's cleverness isn't immediately clear, so here is a tip: notice the shades the lead singer is wearing at the 1:22 mark. The shades are from the 80s, making them unhip, ironic and angsty - each of which is extremely clever.

It's at the :03 mark that we realize, "this is what happens when good bands sit by and do nothing." And we deserve it, mind you: this video has scarves, finger puppets and snow. It couldn't be less rock and roll if it were a video of Michael Bolton taking a dump on an orphan.

Oxford Comma

Follow this logic: if you don't know what an Oxford comma is, you probably don't like grammar; if you don't like grammar, it probably frustrates you; if grammar frustrates you, you're probably a poor person who didn't go to Columbia University - where grammar is fun and easy. This is a problem that Vampire Weekend has designed to fix itself: the bouncy rhythm and nonsensical lyrics are a nirvana for like-minded fans - while alienating the desperate pleas of the "unsavory" types who don't get it. And by unsavory, we mean poor people.

When Vampire Weekend chases a poor person, an Ivy Leaguer gets his trust fund.

Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa

Ezra wrote the song "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" while he was traveling through London on his way to India - no doubt to attend a conference on "How to be non-conformist and love people of all colors." According to Ezra, he was pondering the "colonialism and the aesthetic connections between preppy culture and the native cultures of places like Africa and India" when he found his inspiration for the song. Though he respectfully declined to visit Africa, he did acknowledge the struggle of its people by adopting their music and adding more appropriate hipster rhythms to balance out the less civilized parts. Millions of white teens appreciated this, as the raw African rhythms at times came off as a little too "black."

For just cents a day, you can put ironic 80s tees on these kids - making them way less scary to hipsters.